Field of the Invention
This application relates to backup systems. More particularly, this application relates to the use of intelligently and dynamically allocated proxy backup clients to back up vast amounts of data distributed across a network.
Description of the Related Art
The amount of data created on the Internet and by business organizations, among other persons and entities, is incredibly vast and constantly growing. The rapidly-increasing amount of information available in electronic form places ever-increasing demands on systems for storing, processing, and protecting that information. While data growth is not new, the pace of data growth continues to increase, and the locations in which that data is stored have become increasingly dispersed. Moreover, the economic value associated with this data is significant, and is also rapidly increasing. The need to store and process this data in an efficient manner must necessarily be balanced with the need to adequately and efficiently protect this data and the economic value associated with the data.
Due at least in part to this explosion of data, the systems used to store and process this data have been increasingly distributed, and increasingly specialized. As a result of this specialization, many systems employ a distributed network of computer systems that are primarily focused on storing portions of the data. In turn, those systems designate one or more computer systems as a centralized management resource responsible for coordinating the storage and retrieval of the data stored on the distributed computer systems. While this architecture has many benefits, this type of system also creates a significant bottleneck during the backup and restore processes due to the one-to-many configuration of the network.